M40

Orion, pleiades and andromeda are all nicely widefield and great targets. Can I suggest that you look in the first light optics astronomy tools, field of view calculator, (you can find it at the top of the page under resources)  stick in your camera, pick one of your targets and then have a look through a range of telescopes to see how it works. Treat it as a guide only,  but it's a pretty good guide. At least it gets you on the next step.

Something to consider though, no one telescope and camera combination will do it all as what is good for widefield will not be the best choice for planets or galaxies.

Hope the text size was clear enough🤦‍♂️ clues are there as to why I dont do processing, I couldn't even find a way of reducing the text size 🤪

Hello Mr Green and welcome back.

Ask away with any questions and you will get replies as there are lots of clever people on here.

You have answered the first question which is budget and the next is what would you like to take pictures of? Widefield dso or galaxies? Do you want to get into processing or would eeva be something to consider? 

A couple of clues I can give you are get any prospective telescope weight then add the weight of your camera plus finders etc to it for a weight limit starting point for the mount. Try and look for as much wriggle room as possible.

All the best.

16 minutes ago, Elp said:

From what I gather the dwarf has one critical advantage, you can adapt and use it in EQ mode which will allow longer per sub exposures and less likelihood of star trailing.

That is an interesting point, I presume from that, exposure time can also be changed?  Within the eeva forum, people use alt az mounts and obtain superb results so unless you intend to process the pictures, is the eq option actually required? Likewise there was a discussion where total exposure time was the critical point rather than length of individual exposures? I am not knocking the dwarf at all, I am just trying to understand what would be required against the simple plonk it down and start taking pictures.

Quick question, other than within this topic, are there any dwarf 2 pictures on the site? I do appreciate that weather constraints mean that there wont be many. Ta much.

My thoughts are that as with all things, give it a go and if something is not for you then move it on or put it away for another time and take the virtual pat on the back for being flexible enough to try it. Personally, it fits quite nicely with my other stuff and makes for a great grab and go.

I  don't think either the dwarf or the seestar is suitable for planetary stuff so I will be interested to see how that pans out. 

Much as there is nothing better than spending other peoples money, I would hate to do it in error, so just to help clarify and for future ref, this is a picture of my heq5 spreader with thread sizes, complete with very poor editing .... 😄 All the best

That is a 12mm thread. All the best.

2 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

I like how the images have a title and time included, do you get an option to add date as well?

It's in there, bottom left, it details location, y/m/d, time. It came in with an update to the software. Good move from zwo that.

10 hours ago, LDW1 said:

How often do you auto focus ?

Errrm not at all last night 🤣 time limitations being what it was, I just went for it.

10 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

A couple of galaxies, also with the LP filter engaged, were disappointing, with hardly anything visible

I know exactly what you mean. We were visiting family last night and I took the ss50, so with very limited time I quickly rattled off a number of targets including m101 and m82. M82 was pretty good after 1 minute but m101, both with and without the filter, after a couple minutes proved to be very faint; m31 was a life saver.

My thoughts are that we need to understand the strengths and limitations of a small telescope with a colour camera. Usually for eeva I use an 85mm telescope with a mono camera for at least 5 minutes on M101 and it has to be a clear night, so why I expected a smaller telescope with a shorter exposure time to perform better is beyond me. 

So maybe leaving it to run for about 30 minutes on a galaxy will hopefully give better results. At the same time my plan is to hit the widefield targets with the ss50 that I cant get with my other telescopes.

It is good knowing what the ss50 is good at though; which is one of the reasons I went for epsilon lyrae, would it see any separation? Next target will likely be a double star with two colour stars, that will be an interesting one.

10 hours ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

How did you get it to aim at that?

Well it's not listed in the ss50 search box as I tried that first, so knowing it was near vega, I put that in the search, found it was identified on the ss50 star map, selected it, the red box positioned itself over the target, then pressed goto. 

You can't do it if the blue box is on the screen with the red box.

I had a go at something different tonight, Epsilon Lyrae, the double double

The video shows what can be achieved with time and processing but I know it's not for me. At the same time it does bring something out. The first picture of the eastern veil is a simple screen grab whereas the second picture one of my boys moved the black point using photoshop and it did bring the colour out.

Hello Cemmerts and welcome to the site 👌

Hello cleromancy and welcome to the site. Clear skies within a few weeks of buying a new telescope? That's not right.... all the best and enjoy your new telescope 👌

Hello titanif and welcome to the site 👌

20 minutes ago, Giles_B said:

but the most obvious Achilles heels of the SeeStar seem to be the narrow field of view

True, but that comes down to target size. I've not yet had enough clear nights to go for many galaxies but I am sure that we will then say the opposite in that it is too wide field. From my pov, this is my only widefield setup so I am more than happy going for targets I just wouldn't get with my other telescopes.

I've also found I need to spend a little more time on moving the preselected target area, definately garbage at that at the moment 🤦‍♂️

Good find 👌 Even with the sound off it was more than interesting just watching the comparison between them. 

High level clouds but had to try..... both simple screen shots

NGC6992 Eastern Veil Nebula, 24 x 10 seconds with filter

NGC6960 Western Veil Nebula, 36 x 10 seconds with filter

I think most of us understand where you are coming from and my answer is, in the words of Henry Cole, to do a bit of fettling to speed things up.

I see you have a permanent pier, how about building a small foot print enclosure for it so you can leave the mount out plus have a permanent power supply installed as speed of setup is of the escence. This gives you two positives, the first is its something to think about and the second, on completion of the project, you are up and running in about 15-20 minutes.

Looking back I see you had a few thoughts on eeva; by doing eeva, once setup you dont need to spend many hours on a single target,  in my case most of the targets I go for its maybe 10-15 minutes tops. I use an 85mm refractor with an asiair and I will not run out of targets anytime soon. Food for thought anyway so I hope it gives you a few things to think about. All the best. 

1 hour ago, LDW1 said:

IC 1318 last night in my driveway about 10:30 with dim LED streetlights nearby and the neighbors kitchen lite dimly turned on and rain moving in. And lightly touched up with my ipads photo editor.

You are getting some great pictures, copy them over to the seestar pictures in the eeva section as they will be great for others to see them and give a few targets to try. I  do think the ss50 is going to excel at nebula and solar and maybe once these clouds give us a break i could add a few myself.

I've been trying to find a diagram or data sheet but have failed miserably. The focuser will have some sort of threaded adapter which screws into the red ring, so first question, does the focuser rotate freely or is it fixed? 

 You have a couple of options, you could ask flo for their advice as they initially supply the telescopes or you could look at removing the focuser and see how it tightens up. All the best. 

Just to add my thoughts; you don't mention whether the eq3 you have your eye on is the pro version, which you will need, if not, there is a synscan upgrade kit for the eq3 but it's not cheap. So it's all about budget really.

Looking at the info, the eq3 is good for 5kg and as the startravel 120 is 4kg plus a few bits will take you close to the limit so maybe the eq5 as bosun21 suggests is the way to go,  the heq5 pro is a superb mount and if you can reach that far go for it.

I  like eeva type astrophotography and I use an 85mm refractor so if this is of some interest, the startravel 120 would work well for eeva when coupled with something like a zwo asi290mm for galaxies, globular clusters etc. Not good for planets or widefield stuff.

All the best. 

25 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

You got that right, lol !  If I can't afford to spend that kind of cash on something like that, even if they are no good, I am getting out of this hobby, lol !  But I have faith in Ali !

Doesn’t appear to be that high a cost, but I am wondering if once powerlords adapter arrives, would an extension tube fulfill the same function? 

I couldn't quite see from the picture but it looks like the ali dew shield has a thread on it, do you need an adapter for it?